


Caleb Cleveland Convinces Kids to Commit Crimes

by slayybon



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23087326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slayybon/pseuds/slayybon
Summary: Barry, Lucretia, and Angus have a book club and got into a very heated argument over if they could get away with the crimes committed in Caleb Cleveland Kid Cop in real life. To prove a point they make a bet. Whoever can successfully rob Taako of one of his many (real or fake) doctorates that are scattered on the walls of his school and home, gets to chose the novels they read for the next 10 meetings. This is Barry's attempt.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 72





	1. Barry's Botched Burglary

**Author's Note:**

> I was bribed into writing this, please enjoy.

After spending so much time with Taako and working with Kravitz, Barry had learned that he and Taako had fallen into a fairly regular schedule. Every day at 12:30 they went out for lunch and Taako never got back to school earlier than 1:20. That was more than enough time to get in, grab a doctorate, and get out. 

Barry waited until 12:50 just to be sure Taako was definitely gone before opening a portal into his office. He figured heading straight inside was smartest, that way the receptionist wouldn't even know he was ever there. He was so going to win this bet.

He gazed upon Taako's wall of doctorates. A lot of them were made up for bragging rights but after 100 years learning god knows what from lord knows who, no one was willing to fact check if he had actually earned them. 

Barry figured taking one towards the corner of the wall would seem the least conspicuous. He grabbed a doctorate for 'specialized evocation' and slipped it into his shoulder bag. As he was about to portal out, the door to the office opened. Taako stepped in, followed by Kravitz... and Angus, who was trying very hard to hide his shit eating grin. Barry should have considered Angus or Lucretia might try to sabotage him, but hindsight is always 20:20. Angus must have convinced Taako and Kravitz to go out for an early lunch with him. He really hadn't planned for Taako to be back from lunch so early.

"Barold?" Taako asked, clearly confused as to why he was there. Barry didn’t know what to do, he really didn’t think he was going to be caught so he hadn’t prepared for this scenario.  
"Taako." Barry responded with a nod, hoping to play it casual.  
“Okay, not that I don't appreciate the visit but what are you doing in here?"  
'Shit' Barry thought. He could barely focus on coming up with a lie while Angus was smiling at him, knowingly.  
"I'm, uhh... Dropping off a paper. I wanted you to read it over for me, see if you had any insight"  
"Alright, dig." Taako said. "Let’s see it then."

Barry obviously didn't have a paper for Taako to read. And he knew that Taako could tell he was lying.  
"Sure, lemme just," he started fumbling around in his bag, trying not to reveal the obvious framed document in there. "Huh, dang, must have forgot it. Well I'll just be out of your hair, sorry to interrupt your lunch." 

He tried to walk past Taako who stepped in front of him and squinted his eyes in suspicion.  
"What’s in the bag, Barold"  
Barry sighed, knowing he was found out. He handed his bag to Taako who reached in to pull out his doctorate. 

He just stared at it confused. Barry looked over at Angus who looked like he was trying very hard not to look smug, ‘trying’ being the key word.  
Kravitz spoke up "Barry why the hell were you trying to steal this?"  
Barry panicked. He couldn't let them know about the bet but also could not think of another reason for taking it.  
"Were you trying to sell it?" Angus encouraged. Thank the Raven Queen Angus also didn’t want anyone outside their book club knowing about the bet.  
"Bingo! You got me guys; I was going to sell it."  
"You couldn't sell one of your own?" Taako asked, still not convinced.  
"Mine mean more to me than yours do?" Barry offered in defense.  
He could tell Taako still wasn't buying it. "Oh well, I've been caught, better go before I embarrass myself any further, I'll see you all at Sunday dinner, Krav see you at work" he said as he opened a portal. Taako said something after him but he was already gone. 

He sighed to himself. That definitely didn’t go as planned.


	2. Angus Attempts a Degree Abduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry, Lucretia, and Angus have a book club and got into a very heated argument over if they could get away with the crimes committed in Caleb Cleveland Kid Cop in real life. To prove a point they make a bet. Whoever can successfully rob Taako of one of his many (real or fake) doctorates that are scattered on the walls of his school and home, gets to chose the novels they read for the next 10 meetings. Its ango's attempt babeyy

Angus was confident he was going to win the bet. After sabotaging Barry, he definitely had this in the bag. Taako still didn't completely forgive Lucretia yet, Angus wasn't even sure if they were even on speaking terms anymore, so he figured she wasn't going to risk angering Taako further by robbing him. And with Barry out of the way, he had no competition, all he had to do was pull it off and his book club would be reading Caleb Cleveland for months. 

He had messaged Taako earlier that day and told him he would be stopping by so they could grade papers together. Taako had replied saying he might as well stay for dinner, and that he would be home a little late, but Angus was welcome to just let himself in. Perfect. Angus thought. That gave him the chance to get a doctorate from Taako's home office completely undetected. 

Angus unlocked the door to Taako's apartment and called out for Taako but got no reply, so he figured no one was home. He crept down the hallway towards Taako’s office and peered inside. Empty. He cast detect magic just in case and only a couple objects glowed but no traps. He crept in and placed a doctorate into a bag of holding. He also grabbed a pen off Taako’s desk and went back to the living room to start grading papers until Taako got home.

Kravitz got home first and wasn't surprised to see Angus there. Taako invited him over for dinner often enough that his presence was almost expected at this point. Angus saw Kravitz go into Taako's office and his heart started beating a little too fast, but he knew he had to keep it cool.  
"Angus?" Kravitz called. "Were you in here?"  
Angus knew it was smart to be prepared. "Yeah," he admitted "I needed a pen to mark with."  
“Oh okay,” Kravitz yelled back. Angus prayed he wouldn’t notice the degree missing from Taako’s wall. But the conversation had ended there so he assumed that he hadn’t noticed. 

Taako got home and immediately started on dinner. Kravitz went over to help as much as Taako would let him. While Angus continued marking, he saw out of the corner of his eye, Kravitz whisper something to Taako, whose expression went unreadable. Taako whispered something back and shook his head. Angus tried to hear but couldn’t make anything out above a mumbling.  
“Ango!” Taako shouted abruptly from the kitchen which made Angus jump. “Whoa little man, dinners ready, no need to look so guilty about it.” He winked and Angus chuckled dryly and joined them. 

The rest of the evening proceeded as normal and Kravitz gave Angus a portal home. As soon as Kravitz disappeared, Angus let out a sigh of relief. All he had to do now was present his winnings at the next book club meeting and then maybe return the doctorate. But he had won. If it weren’t for how guilty he felt, Angus might have genuinely considered turning to a life of crime.

Two days later Taako invited Angus over for dinner again. He figured he had gotten away with his crime and this was nothing unusual. He arrived and Kravitz opened the door looking worried. "We might have to take a rain check on dinner kid." Angus walked inside to see that the apartment was a mess. It looked like a tornado of paper had torn it apart. There were pages scattered everywhere, some even suspended in midair. The furniture was flipped over, pillows scattered all over the floor, drawers opens, their contents spilled onto the ground. Amongst the papers, Angus noticed, were recipes. They looked old and were in Taako's handwriting. He also noticed the scattered frames from every single one of Taako's doctorates that were in his office, open. 

Suddenly Angus' bag of holding felt very, very heavy. He cursed himself for carrying the evidence for his crime around with him. He should have known better than to make such a rooky mistake.

"What happened?" Angus asked, trying to sound as surprised as possible.  
Kravitz sighed. "Taako is tearing apart the apartment because he is trying to make sure he didn’t misplace one of his doctorates that had a very important chicken recipe hidden in the back of it. But I’m pretty convinced that someone just stole it."  
Angus’ stomach sank.  
"Why does he keep recipes in his doctorates?"

"Its a foolproof hiding spot!" Taako yelled from behind a stack of pillows. Angus hadn't even noticed he was there.  
"Well clearly its not, if someone thought to look there." Kravitz shouted back. 

Taako ignored Kravitz and crawled his way out from the pile of pillows and paper looking the most disheveled Angus had ever seen him. "Kid, look I need you on this case. Remember how you knew Barry was going to sell my doctorate? Well turns out there is a reward for them on the fantasy black market because someone is trying to get a hold of my recipes." 

Angus gulped. He could tell Taako who the culprit was right now and put him at ease, but he didn't. Instead he offered Taako a reassuring "I'll start cracking clues sir." and pretended to start investigating the scene. 

Kravitz walked over to Taako "You should take a break; we have the best boy detective on the case." Angus started looking for anything that might lead to him as a suspect.  
"I don't need sleep, I need answers. I don't even know who I can trust. Barry already tried to steal one and failed, I doubt he would try again. But we can't let anyone else even know about this. The fact that someone stole my recipe stays between us three. I don't need anyone else knowing that the recipe is gone." 

Angus was at a loss for what to do. He couldn't take the recipe out and secretly return it to Taako later. He was the only one besides Taako and Kravitz that knew how important it was to Taako. Plus, there was no way he could logic a reason for an actual criminal returning a priceless recipe from Taako from TV only to keep a possibly fake piece of paper. 

"Taako, go rest. That’s all you can do right now until we figure out more." Kravitz urged.

Taako made a noise of protest but listened to Kravitz and headed towards his bedroom. Before he left he turned to Angus. “Thank you, Angus,” he smiled at him. “just, thanks.” 

Angus had never in all his adventures with Taako seen him look so genuine. His heart was beating loud and he could feel his face turning red. He was starting to think winning the bet wasn’t worth this. Maybe he could convince Barry and Lucretia to steal something else, or just call the bet off entirely. but he still couldn't think of how to return the doctorate without giving himself away as the culprit.

Angus continued looking around. He couldn’t even go about finding any clues, considering anything he could possibly find would just lead to himself. He started collecting the papers that were levitating, figured if he can’t solve this case he can at least help tidy up. 

"I think that recipe is more important to him than he’s letting on" Kravitz said, interrupting the quiet.  
"oh." angus didn't know how to respond but he could feel guilt making his heart sink.  
"He doesn't even technically need it, he's got it memorized, but I think its sentimental. One of the first recipes he ever learned or something like that."

"Well, better be sure we get to the bottom of this." Angus offered. He felt absolutely horrible.

"Christ Ango, you really aren't going to own up to it?" Taako called from the bedroom.

"What?" Angus could literally feel his chest pounding. 

Taako emerged from the bedroom looking like his normal un-disheveled self and waved his hand and the mess in the apartment dissolved. It was an illusion. "How thick do we have to lay it on you like geez kid, have you no guilt?” 

Angus was at a loss for words. “I don’t understand.” 

Kravitz rolled his eyes at him. "Angus McDonald, worlds greatest detective, walked into a room to grab a pen and didn't notice a very suspicious blank space on the office wall? No offence kid but the only way you didn't notice a doctorate missing is if you were the one who took it.”

Angus cursed to himself. Of all the things to give him away, the last thing he would have considered was his own detective skills.  
"I wanted to guilt you into admitting you took it,” Taako explained. “but damn you were really going to let me sulk. For shame Agnes."

Angus didn’t know what to say. He grabbed the degree out of his bag and handed it back to Taako, his head hung in shame. “I’m sorry sir”.  
Taako patted him on the back. "Stick to solving crimes, little man, you’re no good at committing them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally lied about when this would be up, turns out writing this was a great way to procrastinate all my essays so here you go!  
> Thanks for reading :)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm splitting this up into three chapters. I'll do one about Angus and Lucretia's attempt. But also its midterm season so no guarantee as to when those will be up, probably not until the end of march?   
> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
